Nine Lives

By Gary Kittle

Each of the characters in this collection of dark short fiction has a shadow following their every footstep. In the opening story, ‘Not Found Hanging’, a comfortably married man discovers that his ex-lover is terminally ill, a revelation that resurrects his repressed guilt over how he betrayed her and threatens to destroy the life he has now. In ‘Suddenly Autumn’ it is the protagonist who has to confront serious illness, but his reaction to it is both extreme and shocking. The central character in ‘Chameleon in a Coalmine’ is Dr Hans Asperger, and the story examines his controversial relationship to the wartime activities of Nazi medical experimenters. ‘On the Level’ is a twist in the tale psychological thriller set at a level crossing, where an adulterer’s overwhelming guilt forces him to make a split-second confession with unforeseen consequences. In ‘Dresden’ a former World War Two airman is haunted by nightmares of his time on daylight bombing raids in an RAF Lancaster, whilst struggling to care for his incurably ill wife during what should have been their autumn years. ‘No Laughing Matter’ is a fictional account of the life of one of Britain’s best loved entertainers, Norman Wisdom. ‘Imagine Me’ focuses on the strained relationship between a transvestite and his widowed father, and the novel solution they find to cope with a shared loss. ‘Discharge of Duty’ is the story of a conscientious objector and the persecution he suffers at the hands of his own countrymen. Finally, in ‘Strangers at the Door’, an elderly man living alone feels persecuted by his neighbours, abandoned by society and repeatedly misinterprets the motives of professionals sent to help him, with tragic results.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Kittle
• Release date: Nov 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310658532

Gary Kittle

Gary Kittle is the author of thirteen eBooks. He was twice shortlisted for the Essex Book Festival Short Story Competition and his play 'Walking Through Wire' was staged (and filmed) in London in 2014. Many of his shorter screenplays have been filmed by Film Colchester and DT Film Productions. 'Data Protection', written by Gary for Dan Allen Films, was shortlisted for the Sci-fi London 48 Hour Film Competition. He has won the 1000 Word Challenge with 'The Uncertainty Principle', and twice been shortlisted, finishing runner-up with 'Kismet'. He was also runner-up in the Storgy Halloween Short Story Competition with 'The Gag Reflex'. He is also the author of a serial horror novel, 'A Town Called Benny', with episodes published fortnightly. Outside of self-publishing, Gary is also heavily involved with DT Film Productions. Their first full feature film, Dragged Up Dirty, on which Gary is an executive producer is due for release in 2023. The full-length documentary, Hearts Without Homes, on which Gary contributed as a writer, is also out this year. 'Crowded House' follows on from the success of 'The Hanging Rail'. Gary lives and writes in Wivenhoe, Essex, and strongly suspects that given his frantic writing schedule, he has developed the ability to travel through time. Visit him now at https://gkittle.wixsite.com/gary-kittle-author Where darkness rises.

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Nine Lives

Copyright 2017

Gary Kittle

Published by Gary Kittle (2017)

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to the vendor or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Nine Lives Copyright Gary Kittle, 2017

Second edition 2020

This eBook is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical figures, are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design and illustration by ‘germancreative.’

Dedication:

To my wife, Kaushali.

Contents

Book Description

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Free Serial Novel

1. Not Found Hanging

2. Suddenly Autumn

3. Chameleon in a Coal Mine

4. Anything But This

5. Dresden

6. No Laughing Matter

7. Imagine Me

8. Discharge of Duty

9. Strangers at the Door

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About the Author

Other Books by this Author

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BOOK DESCRIPTION

Each of the characters in this collection of dark short fiction has a shadow following their every footstep. In the opening story, ‘Not Found Hanging’, a comfortably married man discovers that his ex-lover is terminally ill, a revelation that resurrects his repressed guilt over how he betrayed her and threatens to destroy the life he has now. In ‘Suddenly Autumn’ it is the protagonist who has to confront serious illness, but his reaction to it is both extreme and shocking. The central character in ‘Chameleon in a Coalmine’ is Dr Hans Asperger, and the story examines his controversial relationship to the wartime activities of Nazi medical experimenters. ‘On the Level’ is a twist in the tale psychological thriller set at a level crossing, where an adulterer’s overwhelming guilt forces him to make a split-second confession with unforeseen consequences. In ‘Dresden’ a former World War Two airman is haunted by nightmares of his time on daylight bombing raids in an RAF Lancaster, whilst struggling to care for his incurably ill wife during what should have been their autumn years. ‘No Laughing Matter’ is a fictional account of the life of one of Britain’s best loved entertainers, Norman Wisdom. ‘Imagine Me’ focuses on the strained relationship between a transvestite and his widowed father, and the novel solution they find to cope with a shared loss. ‘Discharge of Duty’ is the story of a conscientious objector and the persecution he suffers at the hands of his own countrymen. Finally, in ‘Strangers at the Door’, an elderly man living alone feels persecuted by his neighbours, abandoned by society and repeatedly misinterprets the motives of professionals sent to help him, with tragic results.

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Where will you catch it?

Not Found Hanging

I must have done something terribly wrong. Why else would I be standing here in my living room at one o’clock in the morning with a bottle of pills in my hand? I can’t sleep. I don’t eat. The terrible wrong won’t let me.

Upstairs my wife and son sleep soundly. The radiators feel like stone. Outside in the back garden the apple tree shakes its withered hands, and the wind thumps against the double glazing. It reminds me of another night in March, when I watched a lone figure trudge across the road to her car - though it was me that did the driving away.

If Elaine finds me like this I can only divulge my symptoms (‘I can’t sleep’), but not their cause (‘because I keep thinking about another woman’). She has no idea. No one keeps secrets better than a middle-aged man; or no one thinks they do. Elaine and I have what is enigmatically called a ‘comfortable marriage’, similar in kind to its close cousins the ‘comfortable income’ and ‘comfortable home’. Our relationship has become a commodity, an entity we share and mutually benefit from, like the health food shop we own. And because by its nature it is so comfortable we’ve forgotten the journey taken in attaining it. We’ll never again make love in the back seat of my car or split up over one of us flirting drunkenly at a party; I’ll never storm out of the house only to send her a good night text message from a friend’s sofa. She’ll never have to forgive me for something I secretly resent being accused of in the first place. We never drink too much or swear too much or demand too much in the bedroom. We are how we act: stable, dependable, predictable. But you can never tell yourself a good joke.

Standing closer to the window I take in the full fury of the devoted night wind. How the old tree roots must struggle against that unseen force pulling from above. It’s a wonder it hasn’t fallen. My health, family and social lives are all robust enough. The business is well established, even if the profit margins raise the occasional eyebrow at the bank. I have friends, interests. I’m not overweight or impotent. I have nothing explicit to protest about. I’m fairly certain Elaine still loves me, but when you’ve been this close to someone for so long how can you tell?

Back then – in the months leading up to that other March night - I was in my early twenties and working as an architect. Elaine was a temp who filled in for us whenever our regular secretary had a day off. I fancied her straight away, but back then I tended to find anything capable of warming a bra attractive. I was fit, good-looking and over-confident; exactly the sort of cocky upstart you despise when you meet him twenty years later.

I didn’t think she was interested until she spilled coffee over my hand one morning. The hand was merely reaching for a spoon before you get the wrong idea, but she was so guilt-ridden that I said the only way I would forgive her was to let me buy her a drink. I didn’t consider our relationship serious until she caught the ‘flu in October and I skipped my usual squash league night to bustle round her bed like her own private nurse. That’s when you really know you’re in love: when you give up something of yourself without considering it a sacrifice.

Upstairs I can hear the single bed creaking. My son, Sam is seven and we’ve just successfully navigated a period of nocturnal bed-wetting. I wish I could say it was that mini-saga that had precipitated my current insomnia, but in truth I know the culprit to be a few seconds of local radio broadcast.

<>

I was relieving the washing machine of Sam’s sheets when the kitchen radio said:

‘…And John, Pauline and Andy send all their best wishes to Jacky Pitt and hope she’ll be out of hospital in no time at all.’

I resumed my tug-of-war with the tangle of bedding, but inside my head the words were pursuing each other in an emotional spin cycle: ‘…out of hospital in no time at all.’ My mind awash with memories, that unremitting phrase refused to drain away.

That was three weeks ago. I haven’t slept properly since. I haven’t made love to Elaine since. I haven’t eaten properly since. I haven’t listened to the radio since. But I have visited Jacky Pitt in hospital, which with hindsight was probably not the best decision I’ve ever made. Second only, perhaps, to the original decision to go out with her in the first place.

<>

Elaine got a job in a London office which limited the amount of time we could see each other, and when we did all she could talk about was her new friends, places they’d gone to and people they’d met. She eventually rented a flat down there she liked it so much, but the fact that I never got to see it succinctly exposes the state of our relationship at that time. Matters came to a head in one blazing Saturday night row when Elaine announced she would not be coming back the following weekend. We agreed to a ‘cooling off period’. ‘That way,’ she said, ‘we can find out how we feel about each other without splitting up.’ It was a reasonable suggestion, just not one that should be broached to a wounded male ego.

In short I misread the proposal completely. Elaine was letting me down lightly, I decided. There was no way she would stay bloody single in London, not with all those highfliers with their bloody monthly bonuses and Italian shoes and their bloody oyster cards and... Well then, I decided, what was good for the goose would be good enough for the gander. And I hit lucky at the first attempt.

Chat-up lines are hardest when you’re lonely, easiest when you’re angry; and I was livid. I got introduced to a friend of an acquaintance of a colleague one Sunday lunchtime. She was different to Elaine – physically especially - buxom as opposed to petite, and had full ruby lips seemingly genetically modified for kissing. Whether I would have taken it further had I not been so consumed by the idea of revenge is questionable. But by then me and Elaine weren’t talking, and so within a week I got to see inside Jacky Pitt’s flat instead.

When my anger subsided and my thirst for vengeance was fully satisfied in the manner typical of a jilted lover, I began to explore the character of the new woman I was with. Jacky introduced me to things I would never have dreamed of trying before; and more than that, enjoying them.